Sometime in the spring, I can’t remember exactly when, Natalie’s school called to say she had a headache. Having no visibility into her day I asked if she had just been at recess and if she was dehydrated. They called maybe three times through the end of the year.
But twice in May, at home, once after reading and once while working on hand-stitching, Natalie told me her head hurt.
Cue the light bulb turning on….
Henry and I both have terrible eyes. And when I say terrible what I mean is that if we lived in the 1400s, we would’ve been helpless. I probably would’ve been sitting in the town square begging for food. Henry would’ve been doing something that required no vision up close…. so let’s see, herding animals or something. I’m pretty sure that would’ve killed him in the first few days. Yep, it would’ve been rough.
Before getting LASIK a few years ago, I couldn’t see the alarm clock numbers from my pillow, nor could I see someone’s facial features when sitting next to them. I could read if I held the book 2 inches from my face. I’m not exaggerating. Henry is the opposite – farsighted. Without his contacts he can pretty much sit and have a conversation or drive a car, but nothing that requires seeing details.
So it came as no surprise to me that one of our children would have vision problems. What did come as a surprise is her problem isn’t myopia or hyperopia; it’s actually a vision development issue where her eyes aren’t working together. They don’t track objects as a team…. Because of this, when she reads her brain doesn’t see the whole page… she skips words, she says incorrect words that make sense (‘a’ instead of ‘the’)… basically her brain shuts off her right eye and fills in what the left eye can’t see on it’s own. It makes it very difficult for her to read long periods of time or have a sustained reading accuracy.
Now all the parent-teacher conferences where her teacher voiced concerns that she was barely reading at grade level make sense. Because they didn’t then…. how can a child who’s been reading since she was 3 1/2 years old not be reading on an acceptable level? Her eyes don’t work – duh!
The good news is that we caught it early. The eyes and brain are still developing until the age of 10. If you catch a vision development problem before 8 the chances of correcting it are pretty much golden. Between the ages of 8 and 10, you have to work a little harder. After 10, it’s very hard.
The treatment is vision therapy that gets her eyes to track objects and go from one object to another… some examples are following your finger with your eye as you trace lines; playing dominoes (looking back and forth from your dominoes to the board works the muscles), playing chess, checkers, or memory; bunting a ball that’s attached to a string while tracking it with your eyes. It’s expected to take up to a year to get her eyes on the same page.
I share this experience because I know Natalie could’ve been pegged as a poor student if we hadn’t taken her to the eye doctor. I know that not all struggling kids have a development problem, but some do… So if your child has a hard time sitting still while doing tasks like reading, sewing, etc., or has reading accuracy or comprehension issues, or holds their head funny while reading or complains of a headache… it might be worth taking them to a vision specialist.
Oh, and the glasses are because she is the tiniest bit farsighted so the doc said she should wear them for reading. I love her in them. So much that she says, “Stop staring at me!”
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(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss
Comments (13)
I am so glad that you discovered the answer to Natalie’s headache problems. And now she can excel at school…and enjoy reading!
She does look so cute in her reading glasses. But the best thing is that sweet Natalie was able to find help. Thanks for posting this…I know others can be helped by this post too.
Love ya,
Linda
This is pretty common, which is incredible because it is not normally caught. I am so glad Natalie’s was! Cate had the same sort of thing at that age. We took her to our pediatrician at the recommendation from the school eye test. They told us to go to the optomitrist, who fitted her for glasses. Problem was, she still had headaches. Because of her age, we decided to take her to an opthamologist. He said to get rid of the glasses – they were actually making it worse. He gave her a simple exercise to do with reading the words on a pencil by holding it out in front and slowly bringing toward her eyes while focusing on the words. Worked like magic. She has 20/15 and 20/20 vision still – and Dave and I both are pretty blind.
Very interesting.
So my son who’s six gets headaches all the time. Several times a week. And he watches TV or anything that’s far away out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t look straight at it, his head is turned a little to the side. He goes to kindergarten this fall, so I don’t know about the reading yet. What do you think?? Do you think a regular eye doctor would pick up on this condition??
Judy – get your child to the doc. Now. And if they don’t listen, ask for a specialist. That is not normal. It may not be an eye issue, it could be something else.
Leighann – She is adorable in the glasses. 🙂 I enjoyed having her in my class at church when she was here in CA.
Judy I would also say take him to the doctor & don’t back down until they figure it out! It may be something very eay to fix and it may be something he needs to see a specialist for. I would not reccommend a regular eye dr for a 6 year old. They don’t do all the tests that an ophthamologist does and they don’t know everything to look for in young kids like the ophthamologist does either.
Leighann Natalie does look adorable! And I’m glad she is doing better now that she has the glasses. My daughter has had glasses since she was 2 because she has strabismus. Her left eye turns inward when she tries to focus on something. Basically her brain wasn’t working with her eyes correctly either. The glasses have helped tremendously! She was so afraid of heights even just the first step of a play ground before she got glasses. Turns out her depth perception was all off. No wonder she was afraid! With glasses on she has never had the crossing problem. It still crosses some when she takes them off but at 10 she is starting to learn how to control it more.
I kinda knew you might be heading in this direction when I was reading your post. I am one of your quieter followers;) My son was diagnosed with a vision disability like this when he was 7 and about to enter 2nd grade. We were very fortunate because it was his upcoming 2nd grade teacher who recommended us to a specialist who deals not only with the eyes and their health but has gone to 2 extra years of schooling to diagnose and treat this. My son Evan had convergence issues (not visible to the common person) and he had tracking issues as one eye would read line 1 and skip to line 5 and at the same time the other eye would read like 2 and then line 4. In short they did nothing together and it made me so sad that he had been struggling and I did not know it. He also never could ride a bike or catch a ball and that was because of his lack of depth perception. After only 4 months of weekly therapy he got on his bike and rode off like hed always known how to do it and joined the other boys at recess who were playing catch with a football. We did therapy for 18 months and then were released but do not kid yourself… it is a lifelong issue and you will need to do these excercises periodically to keep the muscles strong and working together. I hope Natalie is more cooperative than our Evan was about all this. He hated the at home therapy we had to do and I am hoping that your Natalie is more of a trouper. I wish you the best in all this and I am glad that you found out when you did!! Isnt it so refreshing when everyone tells you how bright and smart your child is and you cannot figure out why they arent reading well and then you finially get the answer!! I am happy for you in that and wish you well on this journey towards fixing her eyes
Patti from Northwest Indiana
Tell the Natster that her glasses look awesome on her!
Tell the Natster that her glasses look awesome on her!
She looks adorable in her glasses! Josiah (8)got glasses 18 mo ago. His eyes were BAD and we didnt figure it out, he is a good student so we didnt catch it. When he started to make “Monkey” faces while watching TV I got concerned and asked him some questions. I had him in to the eye doc that week. I asked the doc why I didnt notice it he said most parents dont catch it. Since then his reading has quadropled and now he is a reading machine. We took him in for his year check up and her eye script doubled and I freaked, the doc said it was normal and will continue to change. Even the best parents miss “it” both hubs and I wear glasses, I had lasik, hubby’s eyes are weird and he cant have it done.
My husband has very poor eyesight and one eye that turns in, so our two children have gone to an opthamologist almost since birth to be evaluated on a regular basis for problems. Our daughter has vision(nearsighted)worse than her dads, and our son had to wear bifocals for several years in elementary school to correct eyes that didn’t work together when reading. Your story is another example of why all children should be evaluated at a very early age for vision problems, ESPECIALLY if one or both parents have vision problems.
Thanks for your advice everyone! I’ve got an appointment for my son with a pediatric opthamologist on Thursday (lucky me they had someone cancel on them this week). It’s an almost 2 hour drive, but it will be worth it to see someone good just for the peace of mind!
Julia had a similar issue. She went from not reading, to reading dynamo almost overnight.
We are going to try this with are oldest. She has complained about headaches and skipping words as well. Eye Doc never mentioned this. Soo Look what I found..
http://www.eyecanlearn.com/#Peripheral
Kelly